Stale PIT entries in NDN with location centric forwarding can prevent the network from using resource optimal paths, introducing additional overhead.
In NDN, each Interest packet carries a nonce value to identify duplicate Interests. Retransmitted Interests carry a different nonce value allowing the routers to try different outgoing interfaces for the retransmissions. If the hosts are mobile, because of mobile handovers, retransmissions are regularly observed. Such retransmissions follow different paths per design. This is the case, even if the major portion of the path to content source is not changed, forcing the network to send the retransmissions over non-optimal paths.
If PIT entries can be cleared, before updating the PIT with the information contained within the retransmitted Interest, resource-optimal paths can continue to be used.